Lost Days
by Alithea
Summary: Sally Po struggles for survival on a distant planet after her shuttle crashes. She fights through dreams and memories, and it's hard to say which things are real and which are illusions. Written for the Endless Reflection Challenge. Allusions to character death, and f/f relationships.


**Title:** Lost Days  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
Characters are not mine I am just borrowing.  
Partial lyrics are mine  
 **A/N:** Written for the Endless Reflection Challenge. Which in all honestly I have failed because it doesn't meet the word count requirement, but I couldn't force stretching it out.

* * *

What was it he had said that day? She couldn't remember. She needed to though. He had brooded that she shouldn't fight because she wasn't strong. Was it that she should leave it to those who could? Or that only the strong should?

Sally Po gasped and fell to her knees. Her blue Preventer uniform was covered in the fine yellow dust of the planet's surface. She shut her eyes and tucked the end of the handkerchief she had tied over her nose and mouth into the high collar of her jacket. Picking herself up she crossed her arms over her chest, holding herself against the whipping chill of the yellow desert, and tried to remember what Wufei had said that day she had met him.

She thought she had told him that if the oppressors where the only ones that were strong then the weak still had to fight in order to achieve justice. Had that struck a cord, or was it that she just refused to stop fighting even though she was weak? Perhaps it didn't matter.

The thought was most of what was driving her forward. The shuttle had crashed. The planet was being terraformed, but was not complete and there was a chance that it was going wrong. She could not tell after the crash how far the one manned outpost might be. It could be on the opposite pole of the planet, or even on a separate continent. Where there seas here yet? Oceans? She had only heard trifling details about the place. It was just a new place to colonize in her mind. It was an unfinished work, and her shuttle had been passing by on a separate mission.

The wind stopped and she did what she could to wipe the dust from her eyes. She could see a storm was on its way. A thick cloud of yellow and orange dust loomed just to her left at the horizon. It crackled with lightning that looked green to her eyes. She surveyed her surroundings and moved towards what she hoped were rocks.

Was it that he was questioning her just because she had been a woman? The questions kept rolling about in her head as she moved. Did he expect her to just be some blind rebel in a hopeless cause? Wasn't that what he had become?

There was a slight difference in the texture of the earth beneath her feet. There was a rigidity as fine yellow sand gave way to hard blue-gray rock. She searched for an opening, but found only jagged jutting stone. She slipped slightly as she began to scale a side of rock, and felt a cut on her shin. She moved on, journeyed downward, then up again, and finally came to rest between three boulders. The boulders formed enough of what would have to pass for a cave. The ground had smoothed out and so she sat down for the first time in-

She wasn't sure how much time had passed. It could have been hours, but it could have just as easily been a day. She removed a med-stick from her pocket and rubbed it against the cut on her leg, and against what had been a fairly serious gash along her forehead that was now just a scar. The med-stick wouldn't be good for anything more serious, and looked to only have two or three more uses left in it.

She leaned into one of the boulders and shut her eyes. She could see Wufei's face, defiant and angry with the world. She felt that keeping him in mind would help her keep moving. She liked to prove him wrong about his assumptions regarding the weak, or at least what it meant to be weak.

Her thoughts began to drift, and Sally found herself in dreams that were part memory.

 _ **Ladies are lovely when they love you  
But you soon find that they leave you  
Wanting  
And taunting you with what they once offered**_

It had been a Christmas party. Sally usually never went to them.

There was a dream like haze in the room. It was almost smoky, or was it misty?

"Play misty for me."

She turned and saw a young woman that she recognized from other fancy events. The girl had a big family name, and a tragic war story. She walked towards the piano, and then felt the image of Lady Une side-eying Noin tug at her attention. She could almost feel the weight of the look as it brushed over Noin's neck and then out across the party descending on Sally and the girl at the piano.

"Ladies are lovely…" The young woman sang in a wispy alto. She stopped and smiled at Sally.

Sally smiled back.

And then suddenly she was jolted by the sound of cannon fire. A man's voice calling in the distance as black smoke billowed around her, "Dammit, Po, he'll kill me if you die!"

 _ **An old fashioned melody drives me wild  
Can't you see me swing in step with you**_

Sally opened her eyes as the wind howled through the rocks, rain and sand pelting the small sanctuary. She pulled her jacket up over her head and stuck her hand out to catch some rain drops. She sniffed at the wetness, and lapped up the water from her palm. Small miracle for there to be water available. She took in what she could and then hunched back for cover.

What was it Lady Une had said about Sylvia Noventa?

The dream had steered her thoughts completely. And she felt the dry noise of a chuckle try and escape her throat. She wondered if she could only be in true survival mode if she were thinking about inane things. Wouldn't one of the former Gundam pilots be thinking about pure survival? Find water. Establish shelter. Attempt contact for rescue.

Sally thought about Wufei's arguments, and a pretty girl. She dreamed of a party and then a battlefield, and meanwhile her body did what it thought best. Move forward. Take cover. Drink water. Wish for things you just don't get. Remember songs done in an old musical style.

She patted at her pockets in search of a canteen, or any vessel she could use to catch the rainwater. There was nothing. Her escape pod had begun to sink into the sand before she could pull anything more useful than the med-stick out.

 _Am I weak to die so unprepared out here in a desert?_

Sally shook her head. She had at least one other piece of lifesaving equipment. It was a beacon. Small and with a continuously blinking red light that sent out an inaudible thrum. She wondered if she could really feel the perceived rhythm or if she was just imagining it. She just had to hope that its signal could be located through the muck of the desert storms.

She felt the wind dying down, but the rain still fell so she stepped out and opened her mouth to the rain. She wiped her face clear of the dust and thought of something terrible she hadn't considered. She was on a planet that was being terraformed. The rain was probably new and manmade. Was it also full of tiny nano particles? Were tiny machines so small they could hardly be seen in the water? Machines that would in most cases plant themselves and evolve into something like grass, or the development of life for this new ecosystem.

She moved back under the boulders. It was possible half of what she had just thought was from a novel she had been reading. She closed her eyes. She would see what choices she had once the storm passed.

 _ **You say you dream of me  
But that isn't me  
How do you know me  
If you only dream of me**_

Sally had been trying to get out of her bonds for about five minutes. She just was not as good at this as she wanted to be. She felt there was likely a chance she was making things worse. And then there was a vision of charming loveliness at the window offering her help. Sally smiled and allowed herself to be rescued.

"You don't damsel very well," Noin said once.

"I thought I damselled very well the one time it mattered." Sally had replied and then Noin had kissed her.

Lightning struck in the distance.

Or was it closer?

"Sally, you need to fight your fucking ass off!" She heard him scream. "I will not let this hellhole take you."

"Ladies are lovely," she sang, and then laughed. "You're such a bore, Nichol."

 _ **Once upon a dream  
I can still remember  
Those old love songs are the theme  
To my hearts desires  
Will you dance with me  
On the moonlit floor**_

"Will you dance with me," she mumbled, "on a moonlit floor...I'll come back with flowers...I'll come back from war."

She had fallen again. The rocks were slick in places and the sand was not easy to walk along. Sally held her hand to her face and noticed blood, and then realized she was having trouble seeing out of her left eye. She fumbled in her pocket for the med-stick. It was there, but it was empty. She tore at the bottom of her shirt and wrapped the thin bit of cloth around her eye.

She mumbled a song under her breath, and moved forward. There was something on the horizon. It looked man made, but it could have been a rock. It was at least a stable and grounded point for her to focus on.

Sally felt her knees wobble and then she was on the ground. She sucked in a deep and lasting breath. Then her eyes closed and there was only darkness.

 **Here and there the scent in the air  
Wild jasmine and honey  
The memory so clear  
The sight of you there**

"Won't you tell me you love me, like you really do care," Sylvia sang.

Sally opened her eyes and stepped towards the piano. She sat down at the bench and sang along, finishing out the song.

"This isn't real," Sylvia said and looked down at the keys. "You never made it this far before."

"I didn't think real dreams relied on such cliches."

"Only because brains remember them." She looked at Sally. "Something happened."

"I crashed."

"No, at the party."

"I went to the bar instead."

"No."

There was a thunder crash followed by a flash of lightning.

"Do you know where you are Sally?"

"In a dream."

"Do you know why?"

"I crashed."

Sylvia moved her fingers over keyboard. "The new jazz standards." She grimaced. "It sort of gives away your age."

"It does."

Rain poured down and Sally looked up. When she looked down there was a rifle in her hand and she was running.

"Two clicks left!" She shouted. "We can't let them get away!"

She tripped over a branch and fell onto a marble floor. Her hands were tied behind her back. She was looking at boots and then she looked up into a charming smile.

"You don't seem the type to damsel yourself."

"I did... just once."

Another flash of lightning, and sudden heat from the sun. She staggered to her feet. She lurched forward.

"Dear gods!"

"Is she alive?"

"How did she survive?"

"Call for help!"

Heat from the sun, and the sharp sting of sand against her face. Sally sang, "Ladies only love you when you're lovely…"

 _ **Here and there  
Everywhere  
The sounds of spring  
The pitter-patter  
Oh what's the matter  
There's love in the air**_

"Sal?"

She was sleeping.

"Sal?"

She was dreaming.

"Sally?"

An eye twitched and then opened.

She couldn't really see, or focus. She tried again.

"Sal, are you with us?"

She smiled. "I was...asleep."

 _ **Dreaming of you  
There is no doubt  
You've saved me  
But only from the fear of myself  
Just the fear of myself**_

Sally looked at her hands. There were tiny scars crisscrossing them. It was a weird story to take in. She could hardly believe it was true. She reached up and touched upon the bandages over her left eye. It was uncertain whether or not it could be saved. Nichol had visited and brought a garish arrangement of flowers.

She remembered dreaming about things. There was that time at a Christmas party when she was drawn to the sound of Sylvia Noventa playing the piano, but she had been lured away by something else.

Noin?

No.

Maybe her recent experience had destroyed her memory. It was certainly likely. She wondered if anyone would tell her about it, even if it was painful. She leaned back into her bed and drifted off without dreaming. When she woke Nichol was sitting with his head in his hands on the opposite side of the room.

"Is it that bad," Sally asked.

Nichol looked up and tried to smile.

"It must be pretty bad," Sally said, feeling tired despite the rest. "Fill me in?"

"I'm not sure-"

"What's the worst that could happen?"

"It's just," he paused and moved closer. "It's going to take you some time to recover. I don't get told much. But-"

"Can I make a diagnosis?" Sally took a deep breath and said, "Heat stroke, coupled with complications due to exposure, and maybe a side order of memory loss. Also, I'm pretty sure this eye is done for."

Nichol nodded.

"You kept me a alive once," Sally said. "Although it might have been just a dream." She watched him, the grave expression on his face, and the way he wouldn't look at her directly. "I can't remember it all. Can you tell me?"

He nodded and pulled up a chair. He told story, and it wasn't a happy one. She made him stop a few times to take in details or find a piece of memory return, and then she would ask him to continue. At the end she shook her head, and asked him to let her rest. She closed her eyes.

 _ **Ladies are lovely when they love you  
But leave you blue  
When you are through  
What do you do?**_

Sally woke on her back, and the sand, chilled by the evening air, made her shiver. She stared up into the sky and saw the stars brilliant and shining in the distance. She vaguely wondered which point of light might be the earth. Some moved, slow traveling giants that she knew must be colonies turning in their stationary orbit.

Music played in the distance.

She got up and moved towards it. A girl sat at a piano singing in a lovely alto. She knew the young woman. She had seen her at a party, but she never got the chance to say hello.

"Are you going to join me?"

Sally sat next to the girl on the piano bench. Sally's hair was down, and cut just a little shorter because she was trying to get out of the habit of always wearing braids. The girl's hair was short as well, a cropped bob that curled just under her chin.

"Sylvia," Sally said, and looked over at the sound of thunder as lightning struck the sand. It flew up and she saw soldiers running as the earth exploded around them. And someone was shouting her name. She shook her head. "I don't think I can stay."

Sylvia nodded. "You have done so much. You saved him."

Sally saw Wufei's young angry face, a floating mirage in the stars, and smiled.

"You saved them."

Noin and Lady Une arm in arm at a Christmas party.

"I didn't save you," Sally said.

"You didn't know me."

"I wanted to."

"You have to decide right now," Sylvia said and brought her hands down hard on the keys of the piano. The dissonance was jarring, but Sally's expression remained calm.

She stood up and walked back out into the desert. It was cool, and a strange contrast to the cloying heat from the day. She watched the way her movements left long lines in the sand.

"Which parts have been the dreams," she muttered, and then chuckled.

 _ **Time after time  
We dance in the moonlight  
Lovely girls in white dresses**_

" _Pretty tresses_ …"

"Turn that damned radio off."

"Sorry, sir."

"Sal?"

Sally opened her eyes, or eye. She'd nearly forgotten about that injury.

"Sally?"

"Lieutenant?"

There was a small sound of muffled laughter.

"Not for a long time now, Po."

"There was a desert."

"Just try and rest, Sal."

She tried to focus on his face through the haze of fatigue, and what she gathered was probably some strong pain medication. He was looking past her at a monitor. His dark eyes glossed with unshed tears.

"I think I died," she said.

"No," he shook his head. "Not while I'm around. He'd-"

She raised her hand and he took it. "Yes. Yes." Her eye shut and she mumbled, "I'm the strong one."

End.


End file.
